Wink of an Eye

September 1, 2014
The real-life town of Wink, Tex., provides the setting for Willis’s promising debut, winner of the Minotaur/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Competition. PI Gypsy Moran, on the run from some trouble in Las Vegas, returns home to Wink, where 12-year-old Tatum McCallen asks him to look into the supposed suicide of his father, Ryce, a deputy with the Winkler County Sheriff’s Department. Gypsy is reluctant to pursue the matter, until he learns more about Ryce’s death—and of the earlier nonfatal shooting of Tatum’s grandfather, retired deputy Burke McCallen, as well as the uninvestigated disappearance of eight girls, all children of illegal immigrants. Gypsy’s old flame Claire Kinley lends a hand, as does stunning and ambitious reporter Sophia Ortez. Gypsy suspects a couple of deputies are involved in the crimes, but can’t tell whether Sheriff Gaylord Denny is involved or just incompetent. Readers will want to see more of Gypsy, a nice combination of brains, brawn, and bravery.

Leaving Las Vegas just steps ahead of an angry mobster, a private eye runs into equally big trouble back home in Willis' (The Rising, 2013, etc.) latest mystery. Years after leaving behind his high school sweetheart, Claire Kinley, to escape tiny Wink, Texas, Gypsy Moran has holed up in his sister Rhonda's house in Wink. Before Gypsy has time to drink a cup of coffee, Rhonda insists that he investigate the death of Ryce McCallen, a deputy with the Winkler County Sheriff's Department. Ryce's young son, Tatum, is sure his father didn't hang himself, and his insurance policy won't pay out on a suicide. So a reluctant Gypsy agrees to take a look at the file Ryce had on eight missing teenage girls, all undocumented immigrants with families afraid to complain. Even before he died, Ryce was involved in another unsolved case when his father, Burke, also a police officer, was shot in the back and partially paralyzed. Gypsy soon sees that the local police never bothered to look into the case of the missing girls, and the job they did on Ryce's death was at best sloppy and at worst a cover-up. When Gypsy runs into Claire, who'd wanted nothing more than to stay in Wink and help run her father's spread, the K-Bar Ranch, their love, or lust, is rekindled even though Claire now has a husband. Gypsy enlists the help of lovely reporter Sophia Ortez by promising her a big story. Together, they plumb the depths of corruption in the sheriff's department. It's worse than they imagined. And it involves an awful lot of people, maybe even Claire, who's related to a deputy who seems willing to go to great lengths to hide any wrongdoing. A compelling debut for a private investigator-part Old West, part modern techie-whose code of honor is all his own. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 1, 2014

The tiny town of Wink, TX, is a far cry from Las Vegas, but private investigator Michael Moran (known as Gypsy) has to hightail it out of Vegas when a case he was working on goes south. Gypsy shows up at his sister Rhonda's house and is immediately drawn into the suspicious suicide of Ryce McCallen, a former Wink police deputy. Tatum, Ryce's 12-year-old son, is convinced his dad would not have killed himself. As Gypsy investigates, he learns that years earlier Tatum's policeman grandfather, Beck, was shot and disabled while on patrol. Meanwhile several teenage girls, all of them undocumented immigrants, have gone missing from Wink. Uncovering the connections between the three crimes, Gypsy learns that life in a small Texas town is just as corrupt as that in any big city. The police chief has his own problems and the department is being run by two inveterate bullies. And to top it off, Gypsy is sucked back into a relationship with a high school sweetheart, whom he has learned can't be trusted. VERDICT Winner of Minotaur's PWA Best First Private Eye novel competition, this engrossing debut is told with a great eye for the gritty details of life in west Texas. The setting is extremely well done, and the twisty, compelling plot will keep readers hooked. Gypsy is a likable hero, but his sexual exploits will be his downfall. [Previewed in Kristi Chadwick's "Pushing Boundaries" mystery feature, LJ 4/15/14.]

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October 15, 2014
Private eye Gypsy Moran left his Wink, Texas, hometown as a teenager, never intending to return. But when his plan to help a battered Mob wife backfires and places a target on his back, Gypsy skulks back to Wink to lie low. PI work is the last thing on his mind, but his sister blindsides him with a plea to investigate the suspicious death of her student's father, and his curiosity again outweighs his sense of self-preservation. The death of dedicated father and sheriff's deputy Ryce McCallen contradicts Gypsy's experience with suicides, and when Tatum McCallen reveals evidence from his father's secret investigation into the disappearances of local undocumented immigrant girls, Gypsy becomes convinced that Ryce was murdered. After peeling back layers of a small-town conspiracy, Gypsy realizes he's drastically underestimated tiny, boring Wink's criminal sophistication and finds his understanding of love and loyalty has been scrambled. Gypsy and Tatum's relationship is a well-drawn emotional hook, and the solid investigation, combined with well-timed humor, should create a following for this PWA First Private Eye Novel Competition winner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)